As reported earlier, Guilford commissioners cancel County Manager Brenda Jones Fox’ secret land deal after the Rhinoceros Times exposes it. Rhino editor John Hammer crows about beating the N&R “like a rented mule,” but N&R editor John Robinson says his paper had the story first.
Roch 101 asks Robinson where the link is, but I get the print edition and evidently missed it. So I guess the question then becomes why the deal became a bigger story after the Rhino published its story. Robinson cites the Rhino’s “particular twist,” but I’m not sure what he’s talking about because Scott Yost’s stories all seemed pretty straightforward to me.
Perhaps —as Hammer suggests —this is a job for some journalism professor. Note the N&R published the story on Oct 4, which was a Monday, perhaps not the best day to publish such a big story. Maybe they just didn’t think it was a big story.
